


words hung above, but never would form, like a cry at the final breath that is drawn

by buckybunnyteeth



Category: Derry Girls (TV)
Genre: Bisexual Female Character, Bisexual Male Character, Canon Lesbian Character, Coming Out, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-11-27 18:56:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18198050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckybunnyteeth/pseuds/buckybunnyteeth
Summary: “I’m not gay.”Clare nods, having heard this before. Many, many times.Or; James comes out to Clare





	words hung above, but never would form, like a cry at the final breath that is drawn

“Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .”

― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

 

Clare and James are making their way across town on foot, having returned a bike that Michelle and Orla stole earlier. If return can be the word for dropping a child’s bike over a garden wall onto a dog house and then running away.

So Clare isn’t really expecting James to turn to her and confess in an out of breath voice;

“I’m not gay.”

Clare nods, having heard this before. Many, many times.

Though for a reason she hasn’t quite thought about she’s never really believed it.

Thinking that’s all he had to say Clare nods down the road for them to keep walking, but James doesn’t budge. So, she waits.

James bites his.

“I’m not gay … but I’m not _normal_ either.”

“Heterosexual, not normal,” Clare corrects automatically, an imitation of the exorcizes she does in front of the mirror, “There’s nothing wrong with us.”

“But there might be with me,” James looks truly pained, more so than his usual English pained expression, “’cos I like girls like a lot but I-I …”

“You like boys too?”

James looks down at their shoes.

“Yeah,” he says in a near whisper, “Is that allowed.”

“Well, surely it must be,” Clare assures him, “I don’t know if there is a name for it, but surely you aren’t the only one.”

James doesn’t look up, so Clare clasps his arm hard so he looks up and meets her eyes.

“I wasn’t alone, James. You aren’t either.”

James looks at her for a moment and then a small smile comes over his face.

“Yeah?”

“Yes, now come on. We’ve got to get back to the others before they burn down the house,” she starts marching down the road, “We can find a name for you later.”

 

The next day Clare walks over to the Mallon’s house and knocks on the door.  Two seconds later there is a loud thumping noise, a couple of curses, and then James appears at the door.

“Sorry, sorry!” he pants, “Aunty’s trying to sleep, and you know Michelle-”

“Shut the bloody fuck up down there!”

“Watch your mouth young lady.”

Clare winces.

“Uh, yeah. Let’s go.”

They walk across town to the library. It takes some time when they navigate around a new English barricade. They walk into the building, purposefully trying to look as nonsuspicious as possible, and not meeting the gaze of the withered old librarian.

Clare leads James to the back of the library.

“What are we-” he grunts when Clare smacks him in the chest for speaking too loudly and corrects his volume to a whisper, “What are we doing?”

“I found these, two years ago,” she pulls an old book on Roman aqueducts from the shelf to reveal two thinner books hidden behind it at the back of the shelf, “I have no idea who left them here, probably someone who's been ‘ta London, on account of the places they mention.”

She hands one to James. It has a rainbow flag printed on the front as well as a photo of two men kissing. James’s face goes bright red.

Clare rolls her eyes and flips open the one she is holding which has a plain pink cover.

“See,” she points at a list on the inside page, “They have words for all kinds of things, some of them are … a bit much.”

“Yep,” James squeaks, looking straight at one of the term definitions that Clare decided she is not old enough to know about.

“But a lot of them are helpful, surely they have a word for you in here.”

Clare runs her hand down the list and then flips the page as it continues until-

“Ah!” she crows and then cowers as the sound echoes around the library, “Shite.”

James hides a snicker in his jumper collar and Clare glares.

“Look here.”

James looks down at the pamphlet where it says, in a purple text;

_BISEXUAL; attraction to two or more genders._

_a person who is sexually attracted not exclusively to people of one particular gender._

“Bi…”

Clare looks up when his voice trails off. His face looks pale and she suddenly remembers reading the definition of Lesbian two years ago and running to the library bathroom to cry. Finding a word for what she is wasn’t freeing at first.

She throws an arm around James’s shoulders and squeezes him into a hug.

“You’re a wee bisexual, James,” she whispers, “and there’s nothing wrong with you.”

After a moment James hugs, her back, his arms squeezing her so tight she feels her ribs begin to creak.

And then Clare’s mind begins to scream that this is much closer than she ever wants to be to a man and pushes him off. And then punches him in the shoulder, because she does want to support the wee fella.

 

Clare keeps James secret, carries it around with her next to her own. She thinks- no she _knows_ that the others would be alright about it. Maybe after a period of learning, and a poster with bright colours, but they would be alright.

But, in the end, it's not her secret to tell. It's her job to be James’s backup when he needs it.

She does make James a little booklet about some people like them from history. Ones with happy endings. She made herself one last year. James takes it and shoves it inside his jacket, eyes flicking around nervously.

“Thanks,” he says, smiling when he sees her offended look, “I’ll read it when I’m no- you know, out here.”

Clare nods. That’s probably for the best.

“What are you two doing?”

They both spin around to see Orla, looking at them suspiciously as she twirls a lollipop on her hand.

“We were-uh-”

“It was only-”

“I’d say you were romancin’,” she drawls, “If it weren’t for the whole gay thing.”

She pops the lolly out of her mouth.

“Erin’s goin’ manic. Michelle ripped up her project. Come help me stop them from killing each other, will ya?”

 

Two months later Jenny Joyce throws another party, this one is more formal. They panic for weeks about what they are going to wear, then decide not to go, then decide that actually they will go and have to scramble to find something to wear.

And it's well- it’s as disastrous as any other party.

Clare ends up in the garden sipping on a coke. The skirts on her pink dress have been ripped when Erin had slipped while dancing and taken out half the dance floor. Orla had somehow gotten in charge of the bar and has been mixing disgusting drinks all night that has made the strongest stomachs turn. It's really not fair considering she doesn’t drink a drop of them.

Across the garden she can see James talking to a guy, one of the lads from the boy's school across the way they are both laughing, their heads bent close together. James touches his arm and oh- that seems a bit private.

Clare looks away, around Jenny Joyce’s garden and really, how could her parent possibly be this rich? Half the town is living on porridge and handouts and she lives like this, it’s enough to make her blood boil, the sheer-

“Hey.”

Clare just about jumps out of her skin.

Michelle sits down beside her. She’s got all her hair down for once, and she’s wearing a dark blue dress that makes her look really, really-

“H-hey.”

Michelle hums and takes a sip out of her own coke can.

“You’re not drinkin’?”

Michelle scoffs.

“With that shite, Orla is mixing? I'd like to keep my fucking sight thank you very much.”

They sit there together for a while, watching the water dancing in the Joyces fountain in companionable silence.

“James told me.”

Clare spits coke out her nose.

“Told you- I mean told you what? What is there to tell?”

Michelle rolls her eyes.

“That he’s what was it? Bisexual?” she huffs, “That he’s as interested in the fellas as he is in the chicks … though I think he’s kidding himself there. He’s definitely more into the fellas.”

“Michelle you can’t- he told you?”

“Yep, right out of the blue. Then he told me you knew first, seems I’m not so special.”

“You are though! He only told me because he already knew about me being gay.”

The usual ripple of fear on saying those words doesn’t come. It's weird to think that she feels safe in Jenny Joyce’s garden. Though Michelle is here, so it’s not that weird.

“Didn’t know there was a word for it though,” Michelle shrugs, “I always thought it was like, the standard.”

“Huh?”

“Likin’ fellas and ladies, thought that was like the bog standard for everyone and you just grew out of it … and never talked about it.”

Clare feels like her hearts gonna beat out of her chest.

Because-

Michelle-

Oh Lord have mercy she never saw this coming.

“No that-” Clare has to swallow a few times so she can actually talk, “No, a lot of people are only attracted to the opposite- opposite-”

“Sex, Clare we’re in Jenny Joyce’s backyard, not church,” Michelle laughs, “You can say sex, you could probably even say fuck if you wanted.”

Clare feels her face heat up and thinks she must be bright red.

“So, do-do you think you might be, you know,” she spins her hand around for a moment trying to get over her ingrained aversion to speaking about this, “Bisexual as well?”

“I dunno,” Michelle shrugs again, “Let’s see.”

Clare has literally half a second to start processing what she could possibly mean by that-

-and then she is being kissed.

Her first kiss.

Michelle’s lips taste like fizzy drink, and when she brings her hand up to hold Clare’s neck, she feels her whole spine turn to jelly. She kisses back, as well as she can without actually knowing what she’s doing.

Michelle pulls away and smiles at her.

“Were you eating cherries?”

Clare looks up at her and thinks, quite clearly, that this family is gonna kill her.

But that doesn’t stop her from pulling Michelle down into another spine jellifying kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> just some cute fluffy stuff to get me out of a writing slump


End file.
